Dear Reader,
The story of my search for traces of Paulina in Poland is also a story about the efforts and vulnerabilities of extending myself across language and cultural barriers. With that in mind, I’d like to share a little anecdote:
I call it Moje Mieszkanie:
It is September 27, 2018. I awake in the morning on the couch in the two-room Soviet-era studio on the east bank of Warsaw that will be my home for the next nine months. I arrived late last night after a long flight delay. Patrycja and the apartment’s owner awaited my arrival bleary-eyed,1 gave me the keys and household instructions and rushed home to their families and bed.
So now I am on my own on the first day of my new life, needing to find my bearings. I gather myself and walk out of my apartment door into the narrow elevator that takes me down six flights to the building's entryway, and out to the street.
Across the river from the city center, Grochów is a residential neighborhood not visited by tourists or travelers2. Feeling disoriented from jetlag and terrified to speak in Polish (my year of Duolingo is not giving me confidence), I acquire some basic provisions at the grocery store nearby using an apologetic smile and some hand gestures and then find my way back to the building complex.3 When I reach the building entrance, the access code I was provided isn't working. I must be missing something. I look back at my notes. I type it in again. And again.
And again.
And again.
Ok. I am starting to panic.
An older woman with blonde hair, walking a small dog, appears in my purview and witnesses (to my embarrassment and dismay) my failed attempts to enter the correct code. She addresses me with some words to which I gesture nervously in response. Baffled by my mute and frazzled state, she impatiently lets me in with her code.
Grateful to be inside, I rush into the elevator and head up to the 6th floor straight to my apartment. Before my relief of reaching my destination can set in, another issue arises: I am putting my key in the door, but it is not turning. I keep trying from different angles, but it will not budge. What am I doing wrong? As I fidget and fuss, the elevator door opens, and out walks the same woman, blonde hair, with dog. She sees me trying to open the door unsuccessfully with my key and looks dismayed. She starts repeating something insistently that sounds like “ Moy-yah-mish-kahn-yah!” “ Moy-yah-mish-kahn-yah!” Over the fog of my confusion, my memory of Polish words begins to kick in. She is saying "Moje mieszkanje."
My apartment.
In this block of buildings that look the same, when I wandered out this morning in my semi-fugue state, it hadn’t occurred to me to check which building was mine. I am now mortified. I try to explain myself but remain unable to access language.
What are the chances that the one woman I encountered today would live in the same apartment unit I now live in, just one building over, and that she would be the person to let me into her building, precipitating my ignorant attempt to enter her home instead of mine?
With an unforgiving scowl, the woman rushes inside her apartment and abruptly shuts, and locks the door. Click. I get back in the elevator4, ride down to the first floor, exit the front door, and walk to the building to the right (fingers crossed). When I enter the code this time, it works. I rush inside and up to the 6th floor, unlock the door easily with my key, enter MY apartment, and lie down to recover for… a while.
The “moje mieszkanie” story which still turns my ears red, epitomizes an underlying feeling throughout my time in Poland — of being in the slightly wrong place, punching codes without fully understanding what I was doing. I feel this way often when I travel to other countries, but here there was an unusual added layer: a paradoxical feeling of inherent belonging. I immediately shared this story with Patrycja, and we both broke into hysterics together for the first time— an introduction to many hysterical moments of getting lost in translation that would bring catharsis and comfort.
I recently learned that my native Yiddish-speaking grandmother was sent to a municipal Polish folk school during her last years in Poland. According to the report card that we found that started this whole chain of events5, her grades were just passable in all topics that required reading and speaking. My grandmother was a sharp, eloquent person, reading and working in a language that made her struggle, a foreigner in her own land.
I spent much of my time in Poland studying Polish — the language that Paulina spoke and used in her testimony, and the language that connected me now with the living, breathing people tied to this history. While I came to understand and to read Polish at a basic level and become attuned to its melodies, I never felt confident enough to speak it conversationally. I always imagine this must be how my grandmother felt and wonder what she would think of my efforts to learn this language that was distinctly not hers.
Paulina Day draws from the constellation of stories surrounding the ever-evolving PAULINA: a performance and film-in-process centered on a life-changing journey investigating the Holocaust testimony of Paulina Hirsch and its aftermath.
Thank you for reading this reflection inspired by caring for the stories of those who can no longer speak for themselves. This project focuses on the potential of each other’s stories to provide a vision of hope, possibility, and deeper understanding.
See Welcome to Paulina Day and installments #1 and #2 for an introduction to Patrycja Dołowy and the role she plays in this story. Patrycja helped me find this apartment.
While not an obvious choice for a foreigner visiting Warsaw, the choice of neighborhood was intentional: Grochów was one of the neighborhoods Paulina lived in during the Warsaw chapter of her wartime story.
These complexes, referred to by locals as commie blocks or blockies are ubiquitous throughout formerly Communist countries of Central/Eastern Europe.
Check out this video of an old elevator from one of these buildings.
See installment #1: Who is the real Paulina, to learn about the 100-year-old report card that changed everything.
What a wild story!